This invention relates to wear strips, more particularly for use on material handling equipment, such as chutes, plough blades, scrapers and gates, where abrasion is a severe problem, such as when handling sand, clay, glass, coal, iron ore and other minerals.
It is known to provide wear strips of hard-faced mild steel, but these tend to wear away very rapidly when the hard-facing has worn away.
It is also known (see WO/12146) to provide wear strips of rubber of rectangular or square cross-section with wear resistant tiles bonded thereto and extending across one face from and along at least one edge of each wear strip, the tiles being formed of tungsten carbide or other "hard metal" or ceramic material and being spaced from each other along the wear strip so as to allow some flexing to suit the curvature of say a chute or plough blade. In order to secure these wear strips to material handling equipment it is necessary to provide metal-sleeved holes for bolts or embed the heads of bolts in the rubber, but--in either case--the accuracy of positioning of the wear strips depends upon the accuracy of the positions of corresponding holes in the equipment. Also, the provision of numerous holes is an unpopular time consuming task, and any damage to the bolts in use can make replacement of worn wear strips a time consuming task.
On the other hand, the rubber is relatively easy to cut when a less than standard length of wear strip is required, it is wear resistant in its own right, and it offers a degree of shock resistance.